Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (March 2nd - March 8th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 7th - March 8th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Meta

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €370,133 and ran 4314 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

PvdA

25


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€31,232)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€6,037)
3. PvdA Limburg (€3,881)

425

€53,363

SP

10


1. SP (€46,032)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€4,065)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€455)

324

€51,252

CDA

27


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€10,357)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€5,469)
3. CDA Limburg (€5,314)

459

€49,397

GroenLinks

14


1. GroenLinks (€45,044)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,532)
3. Jesse Klaver (€933)

227

€49,328

VVD

33


1. VVD (€8,535)
2. Limburgse VVD (€5,447)
3. VVD Flevoland (€2,556)

555

€25,603

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€21,450)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€1,681)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,478)

700

€24,609

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€22,817)
2. Wybren van Haga (€793)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

32

€23,710

BBB

5


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€21,972)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€584)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€463)

79

€23,219

PvdD

12


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€11,553)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€1,310)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€822)

237

€15,909

D66

20


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,461)
2. D66 (€1,587)
3. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,405)

212

€12,992

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€9,653)
2. BVNL-Haarlemmermeer (€175)
3. BVNL Gelderland (€118)

67

€10,146

PVV

10


1. Geert Wilders (€4,513)
2. PVVLimburg (€397)
3. PVV Fryslan (€319)

54

€6,085

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€5,328)

262

€5,328

ChristenUnie

13


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€2,012)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€739)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€722)

157

€5,036

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€3,375)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€789)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€552)

76

€4,918

DENK

2


1. DENK (€3,751)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€599)

378

€4,350

SGP

4


1. SGP (€1,376)
2. SGP Zeeland (€735)
3. SGP provincie Gelderland (€649)

52

€2,860

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,928)
2. Alliantie (€100)

18

€2,028

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €217,611 and ran 3204 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

CDA

23


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€10,065)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€5,442)
3. CDA Limburg (€5,314)

437

€43,103

PvdA

22


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€18,916)
2. PvdA Brabant (€2,651)
3. PvdA Noord Holland (€1,940)

350

€30,348

GroenLinks

11


1. GroenLinks (€24,152)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,039)
3. Jesse Klaver (€933)

189

€27,546

VVD

28


1. Limburgse VVD (€4,947)
2. VVD (€4,453)
3. VVD Brabant (€1,433)

456

€17,139

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€14,628)
2. Wybren van Haga (€386)

23

€15,014

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€11,424)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€1,681)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,478)

572

€14,583

PvdD

12


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€11,120)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€836)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Brabant (€516)

214

€14,144

SP

8


1. SP (€10,443)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,564)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€247)

157

€12,754

D66

20


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,130)
2. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,336)
3. D66 Provincie Utrecht (€1,182)

129

€11,224

BBB

4


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€7,983)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€584)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€100)

40

€8,767

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€7,732)
2. BVNL Gelderland (€118)
3. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)

55

€8,150

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€2,174)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€664)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€138)

48

€3,090

ChristenUnie

13


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,136)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)
3. ChristenUnie (€319)

108

€2,891

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,771)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€399)

241

€2,170

SGP

4


1. SGP (€1,235)
2. SGP Zeeland (€638)
3. SGP Tholen (€100)

40

€2,073

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,922)

101

€1,922

PVV

7


1. Geert Wilders (€862)
2. PVVLimburg (€290)
3. PVV Fryslan (€156)

31

€1,725

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€868)
2. Alliantie (€100)

13

€968

Google

For Google platforms, data accessed via the Google Transparency Report provides weekly statistics on how much money was spent by parties. The table below shows spending in the timerange between February 5th to March 5th 2023.

Number of Ads Top Spenders Total Spend

GroenLinks

299


1. GroenLinks (€24,500)
2. Stichting GroenLinks in de EU (€500)

€25,000

Volt Nederland

1,457


1. Volt Nederland (€21,650)

€21,650

FvD

20


1. Forum voor Democratie (€20,250)

€20,250

BBB

146


1. Marc-Michel Strijker (€15,650)

€15,650

SP

148


1. SP (Socialistische Partij) (€14,500)

€14,500

D66

3,982


1. D66 (€9,000)

€9,000

VVD

1,895


1. VVD (€3,650)
2. Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (€1,100)

€4,750

CDA

144


1. Stichting statenfractie CDA Gelderland (€4,400)
2. CDA Doetinchem (€50)

€4,450

50PLUS

134


1. Stichting fractieondersteuning 50plus Flevoland (€3,650)

€3,650

DENK

18


1. Politieke beweging DENK (€2,800)

€2,800

BVNL

8


1. Belang Van Nederland (€750)

€750

ChristenUnie

862


1. ChristenUnie (€500)

€500

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 7th - March 8th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 2nd - March 8th 2023 (Last 7 days)